Ethics represents the field of science concerning at the same time philosophy and cultural science. Having arisen in the ancient time as the section of a system of philosophical knowledge, ethics developed as science in which center of study there are questions of morals and morality, a problem of the good and evil. Today scientists continue researches in this area, seeking to give to the ideas of ethics modern sounding.
Usually ethics is considered to be one of philosophical sciences which central problem is the ratio between the good and evil, and the morals act as the object of study. Traditionally several types of ethics differ. Humanistic ethics is more focused on life and freedom of the person. Authoritative pays considerable attention to the external factors influencing formation of individual and public consciousness. The problem of ethics is to establish the place of morals in a complex system of the social relations. For this purpose scientists carry out the profound analysis of the nature of morals, investigate its internal structure. One of sections of ethics studies emergence and development of morality at different stages of existence of a human civilization. It is considered that most the famous scientist of antiquity Aristotle contributed significantly to development of this science. In the fundamental work "Ethics" the Ancient Greek thinker defined the purpose of this science not as simple accumulation of knowledge of morals and as assessment of the reasons and the maintenance of human acts. Aristotle put forward the idea about separate science to ethics independent of philosophy. Being many-sided science, ethics passed a hard way of formation. For many centuries passing from the moment of birth of "Ethics" of Aristotle, ideas of morals and morality, good and evil, a debt, honor and justice cardinally changed. For example, in the middle of the 19th century considerably new approach to morals problems – class appeared. Founders of Marxist philosophy and their followers began to connect morality with influence of material factors which, according to them, have the defining value in questions of morals. Modern researchers of ethics draw close attention to history of this science, typology of ethics and formation of ethics of the future. In training courses of higher education institutions the evolution of morals throughout the antique period, the Middle Ages and modern times is considered. Special attention is paid to initial emergence of ethical representations which sources are in primitive ethics of mercy and justice. Understanding of trends of formation of morality gives the chance to plan the main directions in development of ethics as sciences. There are absolutely new divisions of science: global, ecological and even space ethics. Studying ethics helps those who only start out, to understand artful designs of modern morals and even to solve some personal moral problems which are often connected with need of the moral choice.